The distinguished anthropologist M. De Quatrefages has recently spoken
before the Academy of Sciences in Paris, and we extract from his
discourse on "Fossil Man and Savages" some notes reported in the
_Journal d'Hygiene_: "It is in Oceanica and above all in Melanesia and
in Polynesia where I have looked for examples of savage races. I have
scarcely spoken of the Malays except to bring to the surface the
features which distinguish them among the ethnic groups which they at
times touch, and which in turn frequently mingle with them. I have
especially studied the Papuans and Negritos. The Papuans are an
exclusively Pelasgic race, that many anthropologists consider as
almost confined to New Guinea and the neighboring archipelago. But it
becomes more and more manifest that they have had also periods of
expansion and of dissemination.
"On one side they appear as conquerors in some islands of Micronesia;
on the other we have shown--M. Hamy and myself--that to them alone can
be assigned the skulls found in Easter Island and in New Zealand. They
have hence touched the east and south, the extremities of the maritime
world.
"The Negritos, scarcely known a few years ago, and to-day confounded
with the Papuans by some anthropologists, have spread to the west and
northwest.
"They have left unmistakable traces in Japan; we find them yet in the
Philippines and in many of the islands of the Malay archipelago; they
constitute the indigenous population of the Andaman Islands, in the
Gulf of Bengal. Indeed, they have formerly occupied a great part of
the two peninsulas of India, and I have elsewhere shown that we can
follow their steps to the foot of the Himalayas, and beyond the Indus
to Lake Zerah. I have only sketched here the history of this race,
whose representatives in the past have been the type of the Asiatic
pygmies of whom Pliny and Ctesias speak, and whose _creoles_ were
those Ethiopians, black and with smooth hair, who figured in the army
of Xerxes.
"I have devoted two long examinations to another black race much less
important in numbers and in the extent of their domain, but which
possess for the anthropologist a very peculiar interest and a sad one.
It exists no more; its last representative, a woman, died in 1877. I
refer to the Tasmanians.
"The documents gathered by various English writers, and above all by
Bouwick, give numerous facts upon the intellectual and moral character
of the Tasmanians. The complete destruction of the Tasmanians,
accomplished in at most 72 years over a territory measuring 4,400
square leagues, raises a sorrowful and difficult question. Their
extinction has been explained by the barbarity of the civilized
Europeans, and which, often conspicuous, has never been more
destructively present than in their dealings with the Tasmanians. But
I am convinced that this is an error. I certainly do not wish to
apologize for or extenuate the crimes of the convicts and colonists,
against which the most vigorous protests have been raised both in
England and in the colony itself, but neither war nor social disasters
have been the principal cause of the disappearance of the Tasmanians.
They have perished from that strange malady which Europeans have
everywhere transplanted in the maritime world, and which strikes down
the most flourishing populations.
"Consumption is certainly one of the elements of this evil. But if it
explains the increase of the death rate, it does not explain the
diminution of births. Both these phenomena are apparent. Captain Juan
has seen at the Marquesas, in the island of Taio-Hahe, the population
fall in three years from 400 souls to 250. To offset this death-rate,
we find only 3 or 4 births. It is evident that at this rate
populations rapidly disappear, and it is the principal cause of the
disappearance of the Tasmanians."
The lecturer, after alluding to his studies in Polynesia, speaks of
his interest in the western representatives of these races and his
special studies in New Zealand, and referring to the latter continues:
"One of the most important results of the labors in this direction has
been to establish the serious value of the historical songs preserved,
among the Maoris, by the _Tohungus_, or _wise men_, who represent the
_Aiepas_ of Tahiti. Thanks to these living archives, we have been able
to reconstruct a history of the natives, to fix almost the epoch of
the first arrival of the Polynesians in that land, so distant from
their other centers of population, and to determine their point of
departure."
Other studies refer to peoples far removed from the preceding. One is
devoted to the Todas, a very small tribe of the Nilgherie Hills, who
by their physical, intellectual, and social characteristics differ
from all the other races of India. "The Todas burn their dead, and we
possess none of their skulls. But thanks to M. Janssen, who has lived
among them, I have been able to fill up this gap."
The last subject referred to by the lecturer was the Finns of Finland,
whose study reveals the fact that they embrace two ethnic types, one
of which, the _Tavastlanda_, belongs without doubt to the great
Finnish family, spread over Asia as well as in Europe, and a second,
the Karelien, whose representatives possessed the poetic instinct,
which causes M. Quatrefages to ally them with the Aryan race, "to whom
we owe all our epics, from the Ramayana, Iliad, and Eneas to the poems
of to-day."
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